‘Whites Not Wanted’ Is What Dalhousie Evidently Considers ‘Progressive’

Dalhousie University is looking for a new dean of students but says it is interested only in someone who is “racially visible.”

But I’m guessing that’s not what they mean by “racially visible.” What they surely mean is “non-white.” Or maybe “non-white” and also “non-Asian,” since there’s now anxiety in some circles that people of Asian ancestry are over-represented in parts of society, especially the parts that pay well for lots of brain power.

There is the same lack of clarity with “visible minority,” the logical opposite of which is “invisible minority.” There are such things as invisible minorities — chess players, vegans, gays — though increasingly many now choose to make themselves visible by their dress, behaviour or lapel pins. But again, the real, intended meaning of “visible minority” is “non-white.”

It’s a strange thing about identity progressivism: If the cause is so just, the need so compelling and the case for it so clear, why is the language so mealy-mouthed? If you don’t want a white person for your dean of students, and you think that’s a perfectly reasonable position to take, indeed the only reasonable position to take, why not just say “This job is only open to people who are not white”? Why hide behind an indirect, euphemistic, invented categorization?